Children’s boss loses job in IW council cutback

THE Island’s director for children and education, Colin Peak, has become the first high-profile casualty of the financial crisis facing the IW Council.

Mr Peak, who was only appointed to his role in January at a salary of between £105,000 and £125,000, has lost his job in a reshuffle of senior posts at the authority as it battles to meet its savings targets.

Ian Anderson, who joined the authority earlier this year as strategic director for community services, has been appointed to a new post of strategic director for community wellbeing and social care.

The role brings together the two current posts of director for children and young people and director for community services as the council moves towards a smaller tier of senior managers.

The new role, however, will not include responsibility for education.

This will instead transfer to the council’s chief executive, Steve Beynon, who will take on responsibility for school improvement. Mr Beynon was formerly director of education at the authority.

Mr Beynon said: “Colin has, during his time with the authority, taken great steps to bring about a positive change within his directorate, resulting in improvements in our services to children and young people, which have also been noted by our Ofsted inspectors.

“He has also been a popular director among staff and we shall be sorry to see him go and wish him all the best in pursuing his future career.”

He added: “We are in unprecedented times which require significant changes to meet the colossal scale of the cuts to our funding. Residents, and indeed our own staff, have told us they want us to look at our staffing levels from the top down and that is precisely what we are doing.”